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Intel lacks a linux stratey

08-06-2012, 05:12 AM

.. and yes, I know they are one of the top contributors to kernel development and the few people they have working on linux are delivering amazing stuff like sna etc... but, take a look at what microsoft is doing; they are taking a huge gamble with windows8/metro, they seem ready to usher in the post-pc era.

Windows8 will not only be the first windows operating system that will run in arm processors but, one could argue, it seems specifically designed to deliver the best possible experience while running on tablets, touch devices.. post-pc devices.

And in the post-pc ecosystem Intel is not as relevant.. so it seems plainly obvious to me that microsoft's strategy goes into direct conflict with intel's interests.

Intel has the lowest profit margin in ultra low voltage i3's and pentium's and is trying hard to push the ultrabook so it can compete with tablets and the like.

Now, how to put the inteligence back in intel:

There is little doubt in my mind that windows8 will be an abortion in laptops/dekstops/ultrabooks, the interface is simply designed with touch in mind, so I and other people are left with the choice of continuing to run a outdated windows system or jump ship to another system.

I remember assembling a bunch of sandy bridge systems when they first came out and testing 2 or 3 linux distros on them and just end up saying 'fuck it' ... but oh my how things have changed now, I've assembled a few IB systems and I dump fedora17 and libre and gimp on them and people love them... so the potential is there for something big, really big, this is what I think intel should proceed to do:

- Get more developers working on their open source drivers... as good as they are they are not up to speed with their windows counterparts.
- Get all the features that this motherboard has under windows7 available in linux as well
- Make sure that the software/hardware integration is so good on linux that anyone using their CPU's with their integrated graphics and their chipsets/motherboards will have a tremendous out-of-the-box experience that will rival only that of apple.
- Use the clout it has in the linux foundation to finally push for the adoption of standards. Force them to adopt standards that would be valid across the board. There would be like a central repository, a software center if you will, that would be linux wide and not distro specific, it would not only have all the software available for linux in one place it would also have a simple easy way to install packages for the top distros. Proprietary drivers as well.
- Back a distro like elementary os luna and make it so popular it would sort of unify and stop this clusterfuck of fragmentation.

I see that people, right now, are really receptive to whatever operating system suits their needs, just a few years back they would run away from anything that wasn't windows but now what smartphones/tablets and other devices managed to do was change their habits... If you deliver a cool looking system like fedora17 with conky and a tight wallpaper and you dump gimp/vlc/chrome/firefox/libre on them they will be happy as squirrels with nuts.

I don't think this has to be a post-pc era, but it will either be a post-pc era or a post-windows era and I will either get some easy to use, intuitive, OS like elementary with excelent software/hardware integration or it's going to be android and ee pad transformers for me, and intel I have been buying and using your products since the 286... let me see I had a 286, a 486dx2 a pentium mmx 166, a pentium2 a 3 a 4 and duo a i5 etc etc but if you stick with microsoft my money and loyalty will go to ARM because they are making leaps and bounds and I've seen a desktop concept with a modified android4 and it blew my mind, your move intel.

Comment

They have opengl4 support in windows and I've seen it play highly demanding games like battlefield and cod so I'm pretty sure it's way ahead of the linux driver (it should since they have many more people working on the windows that they have on the linux one)

I actually didn't know what wince was but I remember seeing a windows phone once in the bargain bin, so yep I guess this will be the second version of windows on the arm platform.. if it goes as well as that wince one expect it to sink whoever sticks with it like it did nokia